Managing Documents

By Sabelo Mapasure, SARDC
May 2001

Introduction

Content for the Web can take various forms such as organizational profiles, announcements, lists of publications, abstracts, documents, newsletters, articles, books, etc. Keeping the content relevant, up-to-date and accessible is a challenge for every Web developer or manager. In a practical sense, the Web site is a collection of knowledge products in electronic form, however online principles of documentation and management should be used in organizing the information on the Web in order to promote visibility, access and usability. The following are guidelines for organizing the general content and documents on the Web:

Organizing content

• Decide whether the Web site will follow a hierarchical or linear structure.
• Current information should be more visible (e.g., flagging new information or organizing data by date of publication).
• While the date of publication takes precedence, subject and alphabetical order should be used in most cases for lists.
• URLs should be consistent and relevant to the subject matter.

Bibliographic description

• Be consistent and follow bibliographic/meta standards.
• Use tools for both online and offline publications (e.g., catalogues, lists).
• Provide a quick reference to titles, authors, keywords and subjects.
• Provide an abstract for database entries and offline publications.
• Provide links to full-text, document source or image where available.

Indexing

• A tool for increasing access to knowledge/Web content.
• Include a site map to give a detailed view of Web site content.
• Index can be stored in a database providing links to Web pages or as a Web interface with dynamic links to Web pages.

Navigation filters

• Avoid dead ends.
• Provide options for text only browsing to speed downloading time.

Life cycle of documents (updating, archiving, deleting)

• Care should be taken when deleting or archiving documents; provide follow-up information (e.g., page moved, is archived, or now available on CD-ROM or by request).
• Do not index pages that will be short term.

Database and Web site integration

• A database would normally be created to include all bibliographic descriptions of documents with links to full-text materials.
• A search facility is created on the Web site using HTML, XML, CGI, PERL, etc., to allow users to search and browse database records prior to accessing full-text documents. This allows quick access to relevant information in order to easily meet the user's needs.
• Provide an interface with dynamic links to full texts (depending on size and number of documents).

Document format – books, newsletters, articles, other

• Decide format depending on editorial policy and technical guidelines.

Storage

• Space limitations determine form of storage (e.g., PDF, HTML, CD-ROM, FTP access, etc.).
• PDF format is now popular because its does not consume a lot of space while taking the form of the actual printed document.
• HTML format allows easy access and navigation to specific sections of the documents, however this may be cumbersome to store and download as it might take up several files and space, especially when the document has a lot of images.
• CD-ROMs are a good medium for storing huge text documents and archiving.